Police arrest undergraduate for alleged admission racketeering

Operatives of Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State police command have arrested an undergraduate of Ambrose Alli University posing as an online custom auctioneer, for allegedly cloning the website of Lagos State College of Health Technology and defrauding many admission seekers of large sums of money.

The suspect, Mayaki Best, 25, a 300-level student of the university, studying Library and Information Science, was last Wednesday arrested in Auchi, Edo State.

Mayaki was tracked to Edo following a petition signed by the Provost of Lagos State College of Health Technology, Dr. Moyo Kasim, on the fraudulent activities of one Dr. Odeh Philip Oteche, who cloned the website of the institution and is requesting for varied sums of money from applicants.

Mayaki, who was in possession of the phone line given in the fraudulent bank details, was arrested with three ATM cards, one of which carried Oteche Philip Odeh, owner of the fraudulent account. Two other ATM cards of Access Bank and UBA bore Abua Sunday.

In his confession to the police, Mayaki said he was the brain behind the cloning of the institution’s website and he had withdrawn series of deposits made to the account by different applicants. He added that he veered into admission racketing when online custom auction of automobile and seized items failed to yield expected returns.

Apart from these, the suspect disclosed that he also use local and international dating platforms for scamming.

Through the institution’s cloned website, Mayaki said he had collected deposits ranging from N2,500 to N157,000, adding that one Charles and Ganiyu Balogun, now at large, were accomplices.

He stated that he opened Access Bank and UBA accounts with Sunday Abua for Nigerian Customs auction vehicles and goods and that the three Facebook accounts of female custom officers he had been using and pictures of automobiles in display were sourced from Google.

Also found in possession of Mayaki were different soft copies of unfilled custom papers.

Commenting on the development, the command’s image-maker, Olarinde Famous-Cole said the command would not spare those who hide in other locations in the country to commit crime in Lagos.

He added that the suspect had been transferred to the SCID for further investigation.